Peroxygen bleach-containing compositions have been extensively described in laundry applications as laundry detergents, laundry additives or even laundry pretreaters. Many bleach compositions, including peroxygen bleach-containing compositions, comprise a perfume for the purpose of delivering a pleasant smell in addition to the whitening performance; but also for the purpose of improving the overall consumer acceptance of bleaching compositions.
Indeed, nowadays, having a good perfume is of such importance for consumers that some compositions might have as a main purpose to impart a pleasant smell to laundry. Therefore, it would be a significant advancement in the art to provide a composition which gives a pleasant smell to laundry in addition to excellent whitening and cleaning performances. However, the incorporation of some ingredients, such as perfumes, into conventional bleaching compositions has always been problematic due to the tendency of bleaching compositions to chemically react with these specific ingredients.
Most of the time, the addition of these compounds leads bleaching compositions to be unstable. More particularly, such bleaching composition will be chemically unstable: the active ingredients will have the tendency to diminish upon time, leading therefore to a less efficient composition. This effect is particularly significant in the case of incorporation of perfume. The perfume will react with the bleaching component upon storage and will result in compositions which do not have the desired benefit, i.e., the delivery of a good perfume to the laundry treated thereby.
Several different methods have been used to overcome this problem. One of these methods, in view of introducing perfumes in detergent and bleaching compositions, is the use of microcapsules and/or compounds in a form of particles with perfumes encapsulated therein. The following documents are representative of the prior art available on bleaching composition comprising perfume microcapsules:
WO 00/032735, published on Jun. 8, 2000, discloses a bleaching formulation containing perfume in a microencapsulated form.
US 2003/012222, published on Jul. 3, 2003, relates to detergents and cleaning agents comprising capsules having a core of a hydrophobic material which encloses at least one perfume.
However, the addition to bleaching compositions of such microcapsules and/or compounds in a form of particles, has a tendency to lead to products which are physically unstable. Indeed, these bleaching compositions will have the tendency to sediment and/or settle out, especially during storage and/or transportation. Furthermore, the addition to bleaching compositions of such microcapsules and/or compounds in a form of particles, will often result in compositions which are not homogenous and/or in compositions forming layer at its surfaces.
Accordingly, there is a need to formulate bleaching compositions having stably suspended perfume microcapsules.
The present invention provides, therefore, a stable bleaching composition which, in the same time, delivers a good perfume to the laundry treated thereby and which have excellent bleaching performance.